From computer science to jewellery mastery: Dubai's top jeweller's unexpected journey

Gulf News

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00:00In the year 2006, I felt that I am maybe ready to start my signature on my designs.

00:08So for 6-7 years I have been working for others and they have their names on the designs as big companies.

00:16But I was feeling that it's about time to put my signature and start my own journey.

00:30I am Maha Al-Sibai, a jewellery designer who is based in Dubai for around 40 years now.

00:44I came here with my parents as a child and I continued studying and working.

00:50My education is computer sciences, which has nothing to do with jewellery.

00:56But I come from an art background, I'm an artist, musician and I do sculpture as well.

01:04So I guess maybe that was the start when I noticed that I am related to jewellery

01:11because jewellery is part of that world which has imagination, creation and sculpture.

01:18My serious beginning was in the year 2000 when I participated in a jewellery design contest with the World Gold Council.

01:27I participated in that and I gained the number one on the Middle East,

01:32which made me really understand more about this world.

01:37I got so many offers from different companies to work for as a jewellery designer.

01:43I have worked for several years in jewellery design and that was the beginning of the journey.

01:51Then I realised that I need to do more studies about the jewellery world,

01:57like gemology, diamond, diamond grading, how we deal with metals.

02:02So I confirmed and I supported my work with a lot of studies.

02:08Some of them were in here in Dubai, what was available and I used to travel a lot to have some courses here and there.

02:15Basically I am a gemologist and a diamond grader.

02:19In the year 2006 I felt that I am maybe ready to start my signature on my designs.

02:26For six, seven years I have been working for others and they have their names on the designs as big companies.

02:33But I was feeling that it's about time to put my signature and start my own journey.

02:40And I started in the year 2006.

02:43I was all the time focusing on my story.

02:46So each collection I created had a different concept and a different story.

02:52Jewellery designing is kind of an unspoken language.

02:57So you can talk about your feelings, your stories, whatever you think in life,

03:02what affects you, what inspires you throughout what you create.

03:07My stories are full of different inspirations, different, let's say, atmospheres.

03:14Like when you look at my jewellery you can feel that, okay, it is oriental,

03:19but yet it has also some different flavour, like fusion flavours.

03:24My best-selling, let's say, best-selling collection, which has the name of Damascene Jasmine,

03:32I created this around seven years ago when my country was going through the difficulties and the political situation.

03:39So it was painful for all our Syrian people how the country was being destroyed.

03:45I was talking about the Syrian house in this collection.

03:50The jasmine was there in every single house in Syria.

03:53So it reminds me of my country and the good old days.

03:58So this is one of the collections which made me look at jewellery design in a different eye,

04:06because this was the first collection that I did as a mass product.

04:10Until today we have big sales of this collection.

04:14Expression is my world.

04:17I love to express, I love to talk about the things in life that are not always spoken.

04:26Sometimes we need to express in different ways.

04:30The indirect way is more interesting.

04:33So all the arts, they focus on the unspoken language.

04:38This is my jasmine collection.

04:40This is my first mass product, first collection that I did in quantities.

04:45Usually I do one of a kind pieces.

04:48So it was based on the flower which is the story of every house in Syria.

04:55And this is the leaf.

04:57So the flower is made of mother of pearl, golden diamond, and the leaf is made of the stone malachite.

05:06We have done this in several different sizes, different even techniques.

05:13So some of them are fully with diamond, some of them only with gold.

05:18It's all handmade, even the stones they are crafted by hand.

05:24As much as we do use very high technology, also we cannot ignore the efforts of the artists.

05:30So here is my latest collection, which is what I call it is 40 Laws of Love.

05:3740 Laws of Love is based on calligraphy.

05:39I'm using Arabic calligraphy and Latin calligraphy.

05:43Some of the pieces they have poets as well.

05:46This type of art, cameo making, is famous in Italy, in Napoli to be defined.

05:54So this is one of the samples we did.

05:56The frame is made of lapis lazuli as a base on the stone and silver gold plated.

06:09Pottery Barn

06:11Please visit www.potterybarn.com for more ideas and inspiration.

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